Departure: Past, Present, and Future
by hotchityhotchhotch
Summary: Oneshot. Fifth installment in the Departure series. Takes place in the hospital during "Lauren." Hotch visits Emily before the team has to leave. COMPLETE.


**A/N: Another FFN user (who shall go unnamed, but she knows who she is) and I were tweeting after "Lauren" aired. She mentioned that she bet Hotch went to visit Emily before they left. I thought that would be a great idea for a oneshot. She wants to write it, too, so if you see the same story premise twice, it's because I begged to write it too. Hopefully we will both have different takes on it so it won't be the same story.**

Hotch waited until JJ left him standing alone, his feet seemingly rooted to the floor for the time being, and looked down the hall. He knew Emily was back there, somewhere, recovering. Waiting. Waiting for no one. She knew as well as he that her best friends—her family—would be told she'd died at Ian Doyle's hands. JJ was the only other one of them who knew. She had just informed Hotch that Emily was going to make a full recovery. But recovery didn't mean a damned thing if Emily had no one to turn to. She had to forget everyone she knew, leave everyone she loved, if she were to have recovered for a reason.

After a good five minutes of standing in his secluded spot while the rest of his team mourned in the waiting area, Hotch turned on his heel—now unglued from the floor—and strode with purpose down the hallway toward the patient rooms. He stopped at a nurse's station. "I need the room number for Emily Prentiss, please," he said stoically.

"Miss Prentiss hasn't woken up yet. You'll have to wait, I'm sorry," an elderly nurse said without much apology in her voice at all.

"I'm Agent Aaron Hotchner and I'm with the FBI. Emily is as well." Hotch pulled his credentials from his jacket pocket and flashed them to the nurse. "I'd appreciate it if I could wait in her room. I promise not to disturb her."

Apparently intimidated enough by Hotch's title, badge, and firmness, the nurse sighed and said, "Three-ten."

"Thank you." Hotch followed the signs on the walls until, his heart racing, he reached Emily's room. A dull beep sounded every second or so through the open door. His footsteps through the doorway were tentative, as if he thought some small new noise would be enough to rouse her. He didn't know exactly why he felt the need, but he shut the door behind him. Then as quietly as possible he carried a plastic chair to her bedside to study her.

Her hair, a touch oily from being unwashed, lay awkwardly around her head. Her bangs jutted out at different angles. Her face was surprisingly clean for what Hotch assumed she must have gone through. A cut showed above her lip, and a couple of small bruises were forming, but that was all that sullied her perfect face besides the oxygen tube running across it. The brunt of the damage must have been elsewhere. Guiltily he rose and grabbed the medical chart from the foot of her bed. The scribbled-on generic outline of a woman's body signified several bruised ribs, one broken, a burn on her left breast, and the wound induced by the piece of wood with which Doyle had stabbed her. Under the layer of sheets and her hospital gown, Hotch could picture the bloody bandages, much like the ones he'd sported only a year and a half ago. And when he'd suffered like she had, she'd sat by his bedside. And so he did again, for her, but with much more desperation that he could imagine she must have felt when it had been her turn to do the waiting.

His turn was far worse because he knew that once she woke up, if he got the chance to talk to her, it might be the very last time they ever exchanged words. This possibility made it difficult for him to hold it together. But he remembered that he'd shut the door—that must have been the reason. So once he sat back down, only two feet from her face, he let the tears slide quickly down his cheeks one by one until they turned into more of a cascade, dripping from his chin into his lap while his hands lay uselessly on his knees.

He'd promised the nurse he wouldn't disturb Emily, but surely a touch of his hand on hers wouldn't wake her from an anesthetized state if he hadn't woken her yet, so he reached through the plastic bars on her bed and wrapped his hand around her thin fingers. And while he waited anxiously for her to come to, he wondered how in the world he would cope. He'd already lost so much and had bounced back. But could he again? Knowing she'd be on the run—alone—with no one to turn to, nowhere perfectly safe to go, was almost scarier for him than her being gone in the graver sense. She'd apparently lived the last few weeks of her life in terror. Now she would simply be faced with more, and this time she wouldn't be able to contact her loved ones even if she wanted to. She'd feel alone in a world of six billion people, lost in a sea of uncertainty, where peril could await her around any corner.

For how long he sat there weeping silently, shamelessly, he didn't know, but eventually a different nurse opened the door without knocking. Hotch knew he looked a mess, but he looked up at the nurse anyway.

"Oh, honey, don't beat yourself up so much. She'll be fine," the nurse said, obviously unaware of the details of the situation. All the better.

"Another nurse told me I could stay in here." He could hardly hear his own voice through his congestion. "I hope that's all right."

"Of course it is. She should be up any minute now, in fact. I'm just here to check her vitals and then I'll leave you alone." The nurse made some notes on Emily's chart and said, "I'll be back when she wakes up. She's gonna be okay, sweetie."

Hotch nodded in false appreciation and turned his attention back toward Emily. The nurse shut the door behind her. Emily might have been conscious already, but the click of the door closing was followed closely by her eyes cracking open. This development shocked him, sent his heart pounding violently against his chest again. "Emily," he tried to say softly, but he choked on her name.

Her eyes fluttered open and shut several times, focusing on the ceiling. Realizing it would be uncomfortable for Emily to twist her neck his way at the moment, Hotch stood slowly, towering over her. Her parched lips twitched and she smiled with her eyes momentarily.

"Hey," he managed to say. His other hand joined the first in enveloping hers, and she squeezed back weakly.

Emily's eyes fell shut again. "Hey," she breathed.

It seemed like the stupidest question he could ask, but he couldn't let himself avoid asking it. "How are you feeling?"

"Water," she mouthed, opening her eyes as fully as she could. Hotch looked frantically around him and spotted a pitcher of water, a plastic cup, and a wrapped straw. He fixed her a glass and held the straw to her lips. She drank slowly, letting the water coat the insides of her cottony mouth.

When she was done, Hotch set the cup aside and held her hand again, this time with more fervor. He sat there for several minutes, letting Emily wake up some more before starting a conversation.

"Is everyone else okay?" Emily croaked. Obviously she was on the fast track to remembering everything that had happened, or she hadn't forgotten at all.

Hotch noticed a tear trail down his cheek, and then realized he'd never stopped crying in the first place. No wonder he felt a dull headache coming on. He nodded to her. "Yes, everyone else is fine."

"Did you get Doyle?"

"No. He got away," Hotch said with more shame and remorse than he remembered ever having felt in. "I'm sorry." Hotch tilted his head back in some nonsensical effort to hold his tears at bay.

"Hey, look at me," her raspy yet soft voice sounded below him. "It's okay," she said when she met his eyes again. "He's an escape artist. Getting away from you guys was a piece of cake for him."

Hotch shook his head slowly, stroking the back of Emily's hand with his thumb. "You know what this means," he said under his breath.

"That I have to go," Emily said. "I know," she sad with inexplicable calmness.

"And you can't—"

"Contact you, or anyone. I know." Emily's eyes burned into Hotch's, rendering her unruffled demeanor useless in calming Hotch down at all. When she realized that no words coming from her mouth could assuage his pain, tears brimmed her eyes. "I'm so sorry."

"For what?"

"For not…telling you. I mean, if I had to go back and do it all again, I wouldn't do anything differently. Keeping you all in the dark was my only choice. I couldn't put you at risk. But I still wish you didn't have to go through all of this to find me."

"Emily, you know I'd go to hell and back for you."

"Even after finding out everything I did? I _slept_ with the bastard," she stuttered, her lips quivering, sending a dangling tear down the side of her face. Hotch brushed it away immediately.

"Emily, listen to me," Hotch said, lowering himself into his chair again. Emily let her head loll to the side to face him.

"I wished I'd—"

"You did what you had to do."

"There had to have been another way," Emily moaned. "I just…hate the thought of you knowing that I slept with him. Just know that I wasn't in love with him. Ever. At all. He gave me a ring—"

"Dave found it. It didn't flush." Hotch smiled gently, only with his eyes, as he busied his free hand with brushing Emily's bangs away from her forehead. Of course thinking of Emily with Doyle made him sick to his stomach. But he believed her when she said it had never meant a thing to her.

"I only kept the ring because of—you know everything, right?"

"I'm pretty sure."

"Declan?"

Hotch nodded. "We know about Declan. About what you did for him."

"I kept the ring as a reminder of him, not Ian. It was the only memento I had. I—I took him away from his home. I—"

"Doyle did those things," Hotch said steadily. He lowered the bar on the bed so that it was out of the way. "He did those things by living the life he lived. He forced your hand. You had no choice."

"I'm so sorry, Aaron."

"Don't be."

Emily shook her head until it hurt. "I thought that if I ignored my past, it somehow…wouldn't exist. That if I lied to myself enough, I'd start to believe it. And honestly, I think it worked to a degree. I finally felt safe enough to be with you. But I should have known better."

"Seeing as how our relationship has nothing to do with why Doyle came after you, I don't regret any of this. Us. And you shouldn't, either. You've been happy with me, right?"

Emily's eyes narrowed to slits as her lips tightened and she nodded. "Happier than I've ever been."

"And I've been even happier. So don't regret trying to start a new life. You deserve one."

"All I deserve is—"

"Emily, you have to let go of your past. In the sense that you feel guilty about it, anyway. You did what you had to do to put a criminal away. You always devote yourself one hundred percent to everything. It's just one thing I love about you." Hotch hadn't used that word yet; neither had Emily. He decided he might as well make his profession more direct. "I love you."

More tears spilled away from her eyes, the remaining ones fogging up her vision, but she could still see the sincerity and desperation with which Hotch spoke. "I love you, too." She gave his hand a firm grasp as her weak heart grew notably inside her, swelling with a sudden burst of emotion.

"Will you promise me something?" Hotch asked.

"Of course. Anything."

"Forget your feelings about your past. The only purpose your past can serve now is to keep yourself safe. Use the knowledge. Let go of the guilt."

"And find and kill Doyle."

"That's _our_ job," Hotch said, unyielding. "Your job is to stay hidden. Stay safe. We'll give you what you need to do that."

"You need to stay out of it," Emily protested.

"It's too late for that," Hotch said. "He'll want us dead either way. The only decision that's ours is whether to fight back. And we will. We will end him. I will personally destroy him. And you will come home. Do you hear me?" His own words were doing little to make himself more hopeful about the indeterminable period of uncertainty that would begin once he left this room. All he could picture now was Emily standing alone in some dark alley, cornered into a dead end by malicious shadows that laughed at her fear, pointed machine guns at her, while all she had was a little handgun. "Promise me you'll do your best to stay safe, wherever you are."

'But—"

"You said you'd promise me anything."

Emily's eyes were angry at first, but the longing, the worry in Hotch's eyes soothed her. "Okay." She wasn't sure whether this thought contradicted the fact that she loved him, but she knew it would break her promise—she knew there was no way in hell she would take this lying down. The second she was well enough, she'd be on the hunt. But Hotch couldn't know that.

Hotch lifted Emily's hand to his lips and brushed his lips against her knuckles, leaving them united.

"I know you have to tell everyone I'm…dead," Emily said with a lazily cocked eyebrow, "but what about Jack?"

Hotch sighed and lowered his and Emily's hands to the bed. "That's my thing to figure out. I mean, I'll have to tell him you died, but it'll be tricky figuring out how to explain that he's lost you. He's crazy about you."

Emily's tears increased in quantity and speed. "I know. I'm sorry he has to go through with losing another—"

"Don't worry about that, okay? I didn't mean to make you feel guilty. He'll be okay. He's the toughest kid I know."

Emily was in the middle of humoring Hotch with a nod when the door opened again. The same nurse had returned. "I see you're awake. And quite upset," she remarked, casting Hotch an accusing stare. Apparently she was no longer on his side.

"I'm okay," Emily insisted while the nurse took her vitals down again.

"I'll have the doctor in to examine you in a little while. Everything looks good right now. Stay rested. And you," she said, pointing a reprimanding finger to Hotch. "Let her relax. Don't make me kick you out." And with that they were alone again.

"This is going to sound selfish, but how long can you stay?" Emily asked pitifully.

"Not long. JJ's the only one out there who knows the truth. Everyone will wonder where I've gone and she'll only be able to keep them oblivious for so long."

Emily nodded in sad acceptance and stroked Hotch's thumb with her own. They both sat silent for a while, joined at the hands. "I'll wait for you," Hotch said out of nowhere. "Not that I have any other prospects in mind. But just…if that's any motivation for you to stay safe…I'll be here, ready."

Emily blinked away a fresh set of tears and shook her head. "You know we might never see each other again."

"Hey, what's with the pessimism now?" Hotch chided. "You can't think that way."

"_You need to_," Emily said harshly. "And even if I do come back, it could be years from now. Maybe it's best if we just—"

"Stop."

"But—"

Hotch held one finger to Emily's bottom lip and pushed it up, effectively stopping her from speaking. "Stop." Emily gave in and nodded.

A knock sounded at the door and they both looked to see JJ poke her head in. She didn't look surprised at all to find Hotch there. She must have been searching for him, not necessarily coming back to see Emily, the latter figured.

"JJ," Emily said with a halfhearted smile.

JJ walked to the other side of Emily's bed, covertly glancing at Hotch's and Emily's hands held firmly together. "You're awake," JJ observed. "Feeling okay?"

Emily nodded. "All things considered."

"Listen, I…wish I could stay longer, but I just came to get Hotch. We need to go. The others are wondering where you went. We can't blow this."

Emily looked to Hotch who nodded resignedly. "Just a couple more minutes," Hotch requested.

JJ nodded. "I'll try and make sure everyone else stays uncurious. I'm pretty sure we'll be in touch, Em," she said, leaning down to kiss her on the forehead. "Get well. Stay safe."

Emily nodded and watched JJ depart.

"I guess that's my cue," Hotch said regretfully. For the time being, he seemed fresh out of tears, but his eyes still ached, wanted to cry. He watched with a breaking heart as Emily licked her cracked lips and nodded. "Remember what you promised." Emily nodded and carefully reached her other arm over her body to join her other hand in the mess of fingers and thumbs by her head. "My lips are disgusting right now," she warned Hotch as he leaned in, his intent crystal clear.

"I couldn't care less," he said, his lips upon hers shortly thereafter. Emily surrendered to the light kiss, her eyes sinking shut. Sighing, she freed one hand and palmed Hotch's cheek, just letting their lips stay as they were. He pulled away for an instant, as if debating ending the kiss, but she pulled him back in. Still only for another tame, closed-mouth kiss, but she couldn't picture letting him go just yet.

The haunting image of Emily cornered in a dark alley returned to Hotch the second he backed away. Stroking Emily's forehead with his thumb one final time, he rose from his seat.

"I love you," Emily made sure to say first this time.

"And I love you. I'll see you as soon as I possibly can." He took a deep breath and held it while his feet carried him out of the room. JJ was waiting a few doors down the hall, apparently having had decided that the best defense was just to make sure none of the team made it to Emily's room. She could explain away Hotch's behavior if one of them found her and asked. She could say he was in the restroom. But they couldn't find Emily's room.

Hotch wouldn't look JJ in the eye at first; he simply followed her down the hall, pinching the bridge of his nose.

"I didn't know you two were together," JJ said softly.

"Yeah," Hotch muttered. "No one on the team does. So I'd appreciate it if—"

"I won't tell a soul. Keeping secrets is a big part of my job description." JJ laid a comforting hand on Hotch's shoulder, but he shrunk away from her touch just enough to let her know the gesture was unwanted. "She'll be okay, Hotch."

"I wish I could believe that."

**A/N: I hope you enjoyed – please leave a review!**


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